Mary Karr has written three best selling memoirs—-Cherry, The Liars Club, Lit.  She has also written several books of poetry.  Her writings chronicle a very difficult life in a small East Texas town in the 1960’s.  Her parents were conflicted….to say the least…and she soon turned to drugs and alcohol.  Her last memoir, Lit, summarizes again her upbringing as well as her marital woes, difficulties in raising her son, and her continued descent into alcohol and drugs.  Her writing was the only thing that kept her going.  She finally “bottomed out”, as they say, and ended up in a rehab and in a 12-step group.  Recovery was very difficult for her and one of the most difficult parts of it was learning to pray.  Her sponsor told her prayer was a necessary part of the process but, having been raised in a very irreligious, even atheistic, home prayer was difficult.  As she began to pray, she prayed angrily and disrespectfully to God.  But she was honest.  She learned that she had to kneel to pray.  That too was hard.  But slowly she relented and began to pray fervently and today prayer is an essential part of her life.  She became a Catholic  One thing she learned to do, upon instruction, was to “pray the alphabet.”  This meant going down the alphabet and finding some to correspond with each letter to give things to God for.

I now “pray the alphabet” myself.  This has a meditative dimension for me, helping me to focus and helping me to meditate.  Another thing that has helped me immensely is to realize that there is not a corporally-existing deity “out there” who is listening avidly to my prayer, waiting to heed to be beck and call.  I don’t know where the prayers go but I do believe they make a difference.  I just don’t know how and I don’t need to know.  I know that spiritual leaders over the centuries have advocated prayer.  If people like Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart….not to mention the “upper echelon” of teachers such as Jesus…then it is important to pray.  One important dimension is that it offers good energy to others and to our world.  (See Peter Begsa re quantum physics and prayer.)  And, also check out this link for an interview of Mary Karr and her struggles with prayer, the church, and spirituality as a whole:   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/175809 .